An Honorable Rogue (28 page)

And Rose, he reminded himself, could have no memory of
her
mother. As Ben headed for the stairwell, his mind floated back nineteen years, to the day when he had found Rose outside the White Bird. He and Adam had been what--five years of age? They had been playing with wooden swords, pretending to be knights.

Moments before Ben had discovered Rose, he had noticed a shabbily dressed woman weeping in a longboat as it pulled away from its mooring in the docks. Why remember that woman tonight? He had not thought about her in years. Had she been Rose's mother? And as for Rose's father, there had never been any trace of him. Hence, Ben suspected, Rose's deep distrust of men. He grimaced. Rose's distrust would hardly lessen when she discovered how he had used her. And Adam too--he had dragged her beloved Adam into this and made him culpable as well. In a good cause, of course, for Brittany and its duke, but Ben suspected Rose would not see it that way....

Lord, what a coil. If only he might tell her. Another grimace. No,
no,
that he must not do, not when Duke Hoel needed those links with his supporters in England. Both he and Duke Hoel
needed
Rose to travel to Wessex.

Even if it put Ben's relationship with Rose in jeopardy? Even then.

Shaking his head, conscious of a bitter taste in his mouth, Ben started down the winding stair.

The storeroom door creaked when he pushed it open. In the uncertain light of a candle. Rose and a young woman Ben did not know were seated side by side on a narrow pallet. The woman was tying the knot of a bandage wound round Rose's palm.

'My thanks, Jan." Rose smiled.

Jan rolled up the unused bandages and put them in a willow basket. 'My pleasure." Rising, she bobbed a swift curtsy at Ben and slipped out of the room.

'Does it hurt?' Ben put his lute on a wooden chest. There was not much space and it would be safer on the chest rather than rattling about on the floor.

'It throbs a little." Rose admitted, shifting to one end of the mattress and pulling her pack towards her.

'Did she have to stitch it?'

'No."

The candle's unsteady flame seemed to cast more shadows than it made light. As Rose turned to busy herself with her things. Ben missed her expression, but by her tone he knew that the anger that had gripped her on the minstrel's gallery was gone. Leaning against the door-frame, he pulled off his boots and began unwinding his cross-gartering.

'Ben?'

'Mmm?'

'Listen.' She rapped the wall behind her with her knuckles. 'This part of the castle is made of wood, yet it looks like stone from the outside.'

'Aye, many castles are made this way. The Count hopes to fool his enemies into thinking Josselin stronger than it is. There's less danger of attack."

'So--' Rose brought her brows together '--the whole of Castle Josselin is one vast bluff."

'The keep is stone, and the outer ramparts.' He shrugged. 'As to the rest, it probably is mostly wood.'

'Like a dog raising its hackles before a fight." Rose gave the wall one last tap. 'I never would have guessed it, from the outside.'

'You are not meant to,' he said, watching as she drew her plait forward to loosen it. The bandage on her right hand glowed white in the candlelight and her movements looked awkward.

'Allow me.' He dropped to his knees before her and set to work. He was conscious of her examining his features; her gaze flickered to his eyes, his lips, his hair. Slowly, her unbandaged hand came to rest on his shoulder, as though it had every right to be there. As her glossy brown hair spilled free of its braid, the scent of jasmine filled the air, engulfing Ben in a wave of longing. Rose. She was tearing him in two. He did not want to lose her at the end of this mission. The strength of his feeling disturbed him. It was overwhelming.

Her eyes looked black. Moisture gleamed on her lips, her unbound hair shone. Ben did not move, he did not breathe. He could gaze at her forever. Rose, sitting demurely on a crude straw mattress. He caressed the hand on his shoulder and reached for her waist. 'Rose, tomorrow. ..' he had to clear his throat'.. .tomorrow we should press on to the coast.'

'We are not going to Rennes?'

He shook his head.

'I see you are in a hurry to be rid of me,' she said lightly, in her teasing voice. Ben even saw a glimpse of one of her dimples, but her question did not deceive him--those huge brown eyes were sad.

He dropped a light kiss on her nose, and adopted a similar tone. 'Rid of you? Hand on heart, lady. I would stay with you till my life's end, if you would but have me.'

He must have imagined the swift sheen of tears in her eyes, for she shook her head with a little laugh and skimmed his cheek with her fingers. 'Careful, Ben. One day some girl will take your pretty words for truth and then you would have to flee the Duchy forever.'

Pain twisting in his belly, he looked deep into her eyes and saw only shadows. He could read, precisely--nothing. On impulse, he guided her hand to his belt. 'Squire me. Rose, be my lady? Once more?' He was begging as he had never begged a woman in his life, but she did not seem to mind. Her cheeks darkened, she nodded, and then slender fingers were tugging at his buckle.

His mood lightened. Torture lay ahead, that agony and that ecstasy that being with Rose had become, but he could not help himself.

His chest constricted as she pulled off his belt and put it aside. Neatly. Carefully. Sensible Rose.

'What?' she said, noticing his change of expression. 'Why do you smile at me in that way?'

'You are always so neat and tidy,
mignonne.'

She looped her arms about his neck and drew his head down, 'It is my way, Ben. I am not like you."

That stung. He
was
neat, he
was
tidy. A man who was permanently on the move had to keep his belongings together if he was to keep them. He opened his mouth to object, to insist that she saw him as he was in reality as opposed to the image she had long been embroidering in her mind, but her lips were only a breath away and...

He groaned. They were warm and tasted of home. One touch and tension and confusion drained away. Home. Her tongue was seeking entry and willingly he gave it, losing himself in the kiss. Home. His loins throbbed. It was almost unbearable.

Dizzy with yearning, burning with the desire to roll back with her on to the mattress. Ben lifted his head. Rose was wrestling with his tunic. An alarm bell rang in his mind. This time he might not be able to stop himself. And he would not ruin Rose's life for a few moments' ecstasy, tempting though that might be. 'No, Rose, wait!"

'Mmm?'

'Listen, little flower; Gripping her by the shoulders, he gave her a gentle shake.

Her wide eyes lost some of their dreamy expression. 'Hmm?'

He put a smile in his voice, 'I am your knight, remember, and you must obey me.'

'Ben?'

'Rose, once again, we cannot make love fully, and this is where this is leading." He gave her another shake. 'What if I give you a baby?'

Leaning towards him, she nuzzled shamelessly at the opening at the neck of his tunic, and he imagined, no, he was certain, that her tongue flickered over his skin.

'Rose, you're in a dream. Wake up. As we agreed before. Sir Richard--' the name and the lie behind it almost choked him '--will not want you if you are pregnant with another man's child."

'Oh!' She blinked. Frowned. 'Of course not."

'So...' he stroked her hair from her face and when she leaned into his touch, he knew his smile was crooked '...we must not get carried away."

No dimples, and the disappointment in her eyes had him wishing he could consign the words he had uttered into oblivion. Instead, he pressed a chaste kiss against her cheek and turned away. 'We must stop, little flower. I am in danger of forgetting myself.'

Exactly a week later, a somewhat dazed Rozenn stood on the deck of a merchant vessel as it nosed its way into the narrow channel at the opening of Chichester harbour. The ship's prow was carved with the head of a sea snake in the Viking style, and above their heads a massive square sail bellied out with the wind.

England! Rozenn stared at the land that lay to the west and east, as if by looking at it, she could learn its secrets. This was England. So soon. A lump in her throat told her it was too soon. In a day, maybe two, they would reach Fulford. Sir Richard might be waiting for her there, lodging with her brother Adam.

Steadying herself against the slight swell, which was lessening even as their ship felt its way into the channel, Rozenn stepped carefully over the planked ribs of the hull and grabbed the handrail. The sun was sinking behind the low-lying land. England! She swallowed and closed her eyes.

The water hissed as it stroked the side of the ship. the
English
water. The spume was chill on her face, it dampened her cloak. Rozenn's stomach churned. She had not thought about Sir Richard in days, not since she and Ben had left Chateau Josselin. The sense of nausea that had gripped her since sighting land had. Rose suspected, little to do with the almost imperceptible rise and fall of the waves, and everything to do with the fact that she no longer cared whether she set eyes on Sir Richard again. No, since leaving Josselin, she had not spared a thought for the Norman knight she had once dreamed of marrying.

Ben had hustled them out of the castle at such speed there had been little time for thought. There had been no horse fair for them, no visit to Rennes. If Rose had not insisted, he might even have ridden off without letting her bid farewell to Sir Eudo and Gien.

Today, Ben sat amidships on one of the roped wine kegs, dark hair ruffled by the breeze as he exchanged jokes with one of the sailors. It had been Ben who had drawn Rose's thoughts when she had not been occupied in keeping her seat on Jet; when she had been clambering down from the saddle stiff as a board after too many hours in the saddle; when she had fallen asleep, exhausted, in yet another strange inn.

He had been tireless, and the image that had come to her once before, that of a sleeping lion, had leapt back into her mind. Except that the lion was no longer sleeping. He had woken up and she wasn't sure what to make of him. He was indomitable, determined, and. towards her, cold. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. So cold.

He had to have been working for Duke Hoel. His way of life fitted. Ben had entry into every noble house in Brittany--and in Normandy too, for that matter. And then there was the way he was constantly returning to the Duke's headquarters in Rennes. There had to be more to it than Ben organising the Christmas revels. As for that man he had met in the gallery at Josselin, he too must work for the Duke.

Was Ben on a mission at the moment? Was that why he had become so distant, because he was thinking about his work? If only Ben trusted her enough to tell her, if only...

Resolutely, Rose turned her attention back to the landscape, the alien, English landscape that was sliding past their ship. There was no point thinking longingly about Ben. She made herself notice the muddy shoreline; it was broken up by rocks. There were oystercatchers paddling in the shallows. A wide river estuary. Swans, reeds. A flock of gulls flying down the wind, came straight at the ship. They were screeching like the damned.